When, at age forty-nine, B.B. McKinney becae the Music Editor for the Baptist Sunday School Board, he began a career as probably the most influential man in Southern Baptist music, setting in motion the machinery that has made the Southern Baptist church music program among the largest in the nation. After six years with the Board, McKinney was promoted to Secretary of the newly-formed Church Music Department. Through his leadership state conventions were led to employ music secretaries to help train and assist churches with their individual music programs. Besides his continued editorship and composing, he set up, with his associate Hines Sims, the Church Music Training Course, and began the publication of a monthly journal, The Church Musician.